Articles by Arupjyoti Saikia

The violence in western Assam where armed groups attacked Bengali-speaking Muslims and Bodos needs to be understood in the context of long-term processes of ecological, economic and social change within the larger framework of colonialism and the modern state. Unless the state and its institutions recognise these interconnected linkages, the confl ict will keep recurring, like it has for the past many decades.

Unlike the rest of the subcontinent, Assam retained many elements of its tribal economy well into the 19th century. With the British invasion the picture began to change gradually. Opening up of the Brahmaputra Valley in 1826 brought about two major changes in the mode of surplus extraction. One, colonial capital flowed into tea plantations, along with indentured labourers from mainland India. Though immensely profitable for the planters, this had a limited impact on the larger peasant economy of Assam. A more fundamental second change - spurred by the revenue of the colonial state, infusion of merchant capital and immigration of peasants from East Bengal - started a process of land alienation, commercialisation and indebtedness. In time, the agrarian economy of Assam started to resemble, and become firmly integrated with, the rest of the subcontinent. This essay examines a few aspects of this economic change.

This response to the comment "Protecting India's Protected Areas" by Praveen Bhargav and Shekar Dattatri (23 April 2011) points out the authors' misreading of the Forest Rights Act and also of the report of the Joint Committee on the FRA.